Obj. ID: 49629
  Funerary Art  Old Jewish cemetery in Bychawa, Poland

According to ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, the cemetery was most likely founded toward the end of the 16th century and is located approximately 150 metres east of the town square, directly behind the synagogue, on a hill leading down to the Kosarzewka River valley. It covered a plot of land shaped like an irregular polygon with an area of 0.6 hectares. The cemetery’s early history is not known. After the first Rebbe’s death in 1852, an ohel was erected over his tombstone, where his two successors were also buried. The cemetery was in use until 1911 when a new cemetery was founded. During World War II it was completely destroyed: the fence was taken apart as well as the wooden outbuilding, and tombstones were used for construction purposes. After the War, the area became overgrown with grass and thickets, and was used as a landfill, where it remains as one today. In the 1970s, the southern part of the cemetery was used as an access road to the local co-op. Later, the eastern part of the cemetery was used for sewage and several drainage pits were built there as well. In 2016, along the current southern border of the cemetery, a concrete fence was built along with an informational plaque. Tombstones are still being relocated to the cemetery and the synagogue. To this day only over a dozen partial tombstones, made of limestone and sandstone, were found, the oldest dating to the 1880s and the latest to between the 1920s and 1930s. Any later tombstones were originally from the new cemetery.

The cemetery is fenced on three sides. To the south, a concrete fence approximately 1.8 metres high, to the east and west, there is a metal mesh fence. The fence is damaged in many places. Litter and graffiti were found at the site. A small river forms the natural border of the cemetery from the north. There are 12 fragments of tombstones.